


Another Road

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 11:57:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6565192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carolina has had to make tough choices in her life.</p><p>She is tired of choosing between friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Road

Your name is Agent Carolina, and you’ve made hard choices in your life.

You’re not proud of all of them, not even half if you really put it all on the line. The times you made the wrong call, the times someone got hurt for your stubborn head and quick tongue, haunt your dreams better than any ghost. It’s the price of being a leader, you feel your Father would tell you. Making sacrifices. Having to live with them.

Usually, you’re of the opinion that your father was full of shit. But, just this once, you think he might have been right.

Diving forward, you let the momentum from your speed boosts carry you across a gulch. It’s harder to make the jump without Epsilon, another regret, but when your feet touch the ground, it’s a solid enough landing that you think he’d be proud enough not to sass you. Turning off the speed boost pains you to do, but as you sprint forward, you know it’s the right call. You can’t afford to use everything now.

Blue team needs you.

After Charon, after everything could have gone so wrong, finding Hargrove has been a priority, something that brings a smile to your face even when the phantom presence of Epsilon’s code seems to linger in the shadows. He’s on the planet somewhere, crash landed. It’s something that amused you all, back when everyone was still recovering from the firefight. Nothing was more funny than Hargrove trying to survive in the woods of Chorus in a suit.

It’s not so funny now. It seems Hargrove’s pirates have stuck around long enough to serve as his protection squad, taking their vengeance out on the smaller refugee camps that scatter Chorus. The reinforcements are still too far out to help. And civilian casualties are too damn high for a place with so few civilians left.

“Blue Team, report,” You say into your com. They were out on a scouting mission of all things when they got ambushed, and while you’ve grown to respect their fighting more as the years have passed, even a force such as Caboose can’t hold off an army (well, unless that army is Tex). There’s a moment of static before Wash answers back.

“Getting dicey, Boss.” Gunfire rains in the background and hear Caboose throw something. You hope it’s a truck. It’s always more fun to see their faces when it’s a truck. “Could really use- _Tucker, since when can you use a sniper rifle_!?”

Probably forever, Carolina thinks. The Blues are full of surprises as are their Red counterparts. You wonder why your father was so quick to label them inefficient soldiers. They’re not naturals, no, but once you dig, talents show. Caboose’s strength. Tucker’s aim. Sarge’s ability to make anything explode with the right mindset.

They’re your family. Not like the Freelancers were your family, no, this is more organic. Less tense. A family that could survive off the battlefield.

“Headed your way,” you say, jumping over a rock. Your gun is already in your right hand. As you hear more fire on the com, you pick up the pace. Consider using the speed boost after all.

“Shit-” That’s Wash. “Shit, shit, shit-”

“Wash, what’s happening-” You ask. Static. “Wash?”

“They fucking have future-” And he cuts off.

Screw it, you think. You can’t save your men if they’re dead by the time you get there.

The speed boost heats up and you’re off like a shot. It’s harder to navigate without an A.I, but you do as well as you can under the circumstances, not running into anything as you dart through the woods. As you hear gunfire in the distance, you push it a little more, just enough to jump up into one of the trees there. In mid air, you click on the cameo. Stealth will not help you in this fight. But it will give you a fraction of a second to take in how you’ll win it.

You land on a big branch. It’s luck that it doesn’t break under the stress. In the clearing, you see the scene plain. Two dozen pirates. Caboose on the ground. Wash halfway across the clearing from him, struggling to throw a knife with what looks to be a bullet hole in his leg. Tucker on his knees with a gun to his head. Three pirates holding up future cubes, and you know what this is, this is a hostage situation, and they’re about to take your men thousands of miles away.

You don’t have an A.I. If you had Church, you’d be able to process this scene faster. Figure out exactly how to rescue every last man. Or that rushing in and getting yourself transported with them might be the best call. You’d be able to take every last possibility of failure and calculate it, find your best choice, and execute it. Make a choice you could live with.

You do not have Church. You have a human brain that has more issues than you can count. So you do not rush forward to get yourself trapped within the transport. Nor to you pick off every last man before they can throw the cubes to the ground.

Wash screams as you rush forward, pluck him off the ground, and the pirates vanish in thin air with Tucker and Caboose in tow.

“No!” He says, pushing himself out of your arms as the clearing flashes white. He has a lot of strength for someone who’s bleeding out. You’re on the ground, hard to stick a landing that was more of a tackle than anything else, and when you look up, he’s pushing himself off the ground with two shaking arms. “No, fuck, no, shit, shit-”

You lean back, processing. Wash punches the ground and somehow, you feel like he’s punching you instead. When he turns to you, you don’t need to see his face to know what his expression looks like.

Rage is something you’re familiar with these days.

“What the fuck!” He growls. “They’re fucking gone. With Hargrove.” He shakes his head and you know what he’s thinking. Captivity is not pleasant. “I could take it, but them? Tucker? Caboose?” He collapses, his arms no longer able to hold himself up. He needs medical attention, you think.  That doesn’t stop him from talking. “Why did you save me?”

Your mouth is dry. There are plenty of reasons you could give. He was the worst injured. You’ll need his help to get the rest back. His implants make captivity a higher risk to a man who knows how to mess with them.

You could say these things. But none of them are true.

“I don’t know.” And there it is, the real reason. Because you don’t, you don’t know why you rushed for him when you could have saved one of the others, you don’t know why you choose to save the most capable, the most likely to make it.

“ _He’s been through enough_ ,” the ghost of Epsilon whispers in your mind.

You wonder if that guilt was something you both had in common.

Getting Wash to medical is a hassle. He’s passed out the entire trek, and after Grey says he’ll live, you return to your room. Lie on the cot there and stare at the ceiling.

Your name is Agent Carolina, and you’ve made hard choices in your life.

You are not sure if there was a right answer to this one. 


End file.
